


Between Them, There Are Doors

by Orchids_and_Fictional_Cities



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst and Feels, Angst and Humor, M/M, The gods walk in our midst, Travelogue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-07
Updated: 2019-04-07
Packaged: 2020-01-06 02:23:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18378998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Orchids_and_Fictional_Cities/pseuds/Orchids_and_Fictional_Cities
Summary: The god of liminal spaces exists in the domain of transitions, commanding realms that straddle both physical borders and boundaries of a less corporeal nature: times, tides, and the vicissitudes of life.Yuuri keeps running into him in his travels.





	Between Them, There Are Doors

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for Issue 3 of [_Shall We Read?_ : a Yuri on Ice Litmag](https://yoilitmag.tumblr.com)! So grateful for having been given the opportunity to contribute to this, and to work among such talented people ♥♥

 

 

> _“In the universe, there are things that are known, and things that are unknown, and in between them, there are doors.”_ \- William Blake

 

 

* * *

 

 

The first time Yuuri meets him is early in the early morning hours of a ‘mild’ summer day - which, for this country, means gray skies and freezing winds that slice and numb at alternate turns.

 

The jet lag from having gone back nine hours is potent, and he hasn’t shaken it off. It’s been mostly harmless these past few days; usually the occasional blast of frigid air to the face, and opening his eyes to the sights of volcanic rock, or waterfalls bleeding from the edges of a glacier, or basalt and black sands stretching to a roiling sea, have been enough to wake him up.

 

And then of course, on Day Seven, he sleeps right through his alarm.

 

Yuuri wastes a good twenty minutes fretting - although is it really a waste, if he isn’t going anywhere anytime soon? He’s already imagining the earful that Mari- _neesan_ or Minako- _sensei_ will have for him, when a shiny red car pulls in the wrong way from a one-way street, and stops in front of him.

 

He stares, dumbfoundead, as the passenger-side window rolls slowly down. The driver leans over to get a closer look at him, his light, silvery hair glittering in the dim early-morning light. “Where are you headed?”

 

“Um. The bus terminal.” Yuuri finds himself blanking out on the name of it, which is hilarious - it’s only three letters long. “The big one?”

 

“Trying to catch an airport bus?”

 

“That was the plan.”

 

The man hums for a moment, staring out into the street.

 

“Hop in. I can take you.”

 

“Uh… I’m not sure…”

 

“Won’t be another small bus coming around to this stop for the next hour or so,” the man says. “Taxis are highway robbery around here. But it’s your choice.”

 

Come to think of it, he does recall having seen more than a dozen hitchhikers over the past few days. That’s promising. This man looks… well, it’s too early to say he looks ‘nice’, but he looks like a decent person. If Yuuri’s wrong about that, then… he supposes he’s lived a good life.

 

Well - he’s lived _a_ life. Whatever that’s worth.

 

“Thanks. For this.” Yuuri fiddles with the straps of the backpack he’s meant to live out of for the next fifteen days. “Do you live around here?”

 

The man smiles, and Yuuri finds his gaze drawn to the prominent bow of his lips. It lends his mouth a curious, heart-like shape.

 

Now that he’s much closer, and Yuuri has the opportunity to just… _stare_ at him… it’s almost uncanny, how symmetrical his features are. Yuuri thinks that he can draw a line from that bow of this man’s lips, straight through the middle of his eyes, and end up with two perfectly mirrored halves.

 

That’s what makes people beautiful, right? And that’s why Yuuri can’t stop staring, now?

 

“Not really. I’m not the kind of person who puts down roots anywhere.” He hums in thought. “But I’d say this is one of my favorite places.”

 

“Yeah?” Yuuri tears his eyes away long enough to stare out the window. By now the sun has just started to rise, and the first, feeble rays cast a sensational glow onto the mountains in the distance. He looks at the water, then at the road, then at the face of the stranger in the driver’s seat once more.  “It’s really pretty, I guess,” he says at length.

 

The man drives him the rest of the way to the bus station, parks in front of the building, and offers to wait with Yuuri until the next big bus arrives. He asks about the places Yuuri visited, what tours he went on, and did he like them? Yuuri indulges him as best as he can, showing him pictures on his phone.

 

It’s only when the bus to the airport pulls up outside, announcing its arrival with the screeching of brakes, that Yuuri remembers he never asked the man for his name.

 

“It’s ‘Victor’.”

 

“Victor.” The word catches in his throat, and he has to take another breath. It’s because of this stupid heavy backpack, he tells himself. “Thanks again for the ride.”

 

“It was my pleasure.” Victor smiles. “Safe travels, Yuuri.”

 

The bus has already pulled onto the main road when Yuuri realizes: he never gave Victor _his_ name.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Yuuri is too young to be going on a ‘bucket list’ trip. He would’ve thought that this would be obvious, but everyone keeps asking.

 

His answer changes by the day, from a grab bag of canned responses: wanderlust (so _millenial_ ), a lucky pricing error on a flight aggregator, self-deprecating jokes about an impending quarter-life crisis. But the truth is… complicated, and has something to do with a wedding he attended exactly a year before his first flight departed from Karatsu.

 

Phichit was many things to him: classmate, roommate, karaoke partner, motivational coach, friend. He may or may not have been Yuuri’s first hookup, but in all honesty that incident (fine; _several incidents_ ) didn’t really register as more than a blip on the radar of their relationship, all things considered. That was how impossibly close they were. For the longest time, he was just… 'there', a constant in Yuuri’s life.

 

Yuuri hadn't exactly ascribed a label to what they were. But a part of him always wondered: _'What if?'_   


And then the phone rang one night, and Mari _-neesan_ was crying into the receiver from 6,794 miles away. He was only able to parse ‘father’, ‘overwork’ and ‘heart attack’ through her sobbing, but all of a sudden, everything he was agonizing about at the time seemed so goddamn trivial.

 

His father was lucky, but it was time for him to seriously cut back on working. Tourists were insatiable for hot springs and _katsudon,_ though, so there was no choice but for Yuuri to move back and help his family run the _onsen_.

 

Phichit was hurt, but understood completely. He helped Yuuri stuff the past four years of his life into a measly three suitcases. He threw a surprise bon voyage party around the pool behind the dorms, featuring a concerning amount of glitter.

 

In the morning, Phichit drove him to the airport, put his flashers on at the curb, and kissed him over the gearshift. _‘For old time’s sake’_.

  
The first year was easy - Facetime all day, every day, long emails that broke Google’s conversation limits. They traded pictures of stray cats, asshole parking, and the sky. They traded their mothers’ recipes: Massaman curry and tonkotsu ramen and tom yum soup and, of course, his mother’s famous _katsudon_.

 

Eventually, inevitably, it dwindled - into birthday wishes and memes, slow enough that they didn’t seem to notice until it had already happened.

 

And then, occasionally: _‘How are you?’_

 

In hindsight, it was probably Yuuri’s fault. How much effort would it have really taken to hit ‘Reply’ instead of staring at the same messages for days at a time, until it got too awkward to answer? How hard would it have been to pick up the phone and call instead? Yuuri was busy, tired all the time, and threw himself headfirst into the family business hoping that it would distract him from the turmoil churning in his head. It actually worked for awhile.

 

It worked until Phichit and Seung-gil’s first couple photo on Instagram. 

 

 

> **phichit.chu** Told him to try his best NOT to make a grump face ❤️😁❤️ You guys be the judge!! (jk ilu babe ~♡) @seung-gillee

 

 

Somehow, Yuuri found himself a mostly-silent witness to a love story four years in the making.

 

Everyone agreed that it was a lovely wedding, a night to remember. Yuuri was honored to be Phichit’s best man, he really was. If he might have spent the rest of that night knocking back jello shots at the bar, well, that didn’t make it any less true.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Jet lag is a cruel, relentless thing, and he hasn’t fully gotten over it by the time the next leg of his trip starts, pushing him forward by three time zones. It leaves him nodding off during long bus rides and wide awake past midnight. It follows him between cities, through sleepy towns built right at the end of a fjord.

 

It compels him to find a quiet corner in the train station, where he has to switch trains to catch the one he wants, because he’s thirty minutes early and so, so tired. _Just a short power nap_ , he tells himself, until his train comes in.

 

He does not hear his train coming in.

 

Jet lag is how Yuuri winds up stranded in a mountain station, almost 3000 feet above sea level, missing the day’s last train headed back to the capital.

 

He rushes to the Departures signboard for any semblance of hope. But the trains that remain are for places he’s never heard of, and none of them look like they’re any closer to his actual destination. Is it better to stay here - a glorified train platform with a roof, with nothing but benches and a closing gift shop - or try his luck at a random station that might not be any different than this one?

 

He decides to wait it out overnight. The gift shop owner takes pity on him, leaving a couple of pastries and a water bottle to last him until morning. Yuuri camps out near an outlet, so he can at least keep his phone charged.

 

He’ll survive, he tells himself. This was the whole point of this trip, right? He’ll be fine.

 

At around midnight, in the middle of his twelfth video from a _‘Dogs With Jobs!!’_ playlist on YouTube, he hears a very familiar voice. “Hi.”

 

Yuuri nearly jumps out of his own skin. “V-Victor?” The sound that his throat makes is humiliating. “Where did you even come from?!”

 

Victor’s staring at the Departures board with a frown on his face. “Do they not do night trains on this line anymore?”

 

“Apparently not on Saturdays,” Yuuri sighs. “But there’s a train that leaves at 1 a.m. literally every other day of the week.”

 

“That’s unfortunate.” Victor stuffs his hands into his pockets and chuckles. “I suppose that means you and I are stuck here for the night.”

 

Yuuri stares at him. He’s long past the knee-jerk paranoia that Victor might be some kind of axe murderer - he wouldn’t have thrown away the element of surprise if that was what he came here for. And so staring turns into being reminded of how startlingly _blue_ Victor’s eyes are, how his jawline can cut glass. That flimsy T-shirt he’s got on doesn’t look like it’s doing anything for him in this cold, but it does tease a glimpse of collarbone, and the fabric hugs broad shoulders that look so comfortable to rest your head on.

 

 _God_ , he’s so pretty.

 

“Where did you come from?” he asks again.

 

“It’s quite embarrassing, actually. This is my first time here, so I took a chance and did a bit of sightseeing around the area.” Victor scratches the back of his head with a sheepish grin. “Lost track of time.”

 

“Huh.” Yuuri wasn’t aware that there was anything else here for miles. Then again, he hasn’t really looked around everywhere. Maybe there’s some kind of hiking path behind the station?

 

“Anyway.” Victor finally leaves the Departures board and flashes him a smile. He reaches into his back pocket, and pulls out an ancient-looking deck of cards. “I’m happy for the company, if you are.”

 

They play cards, trade stories about all the dogs they’ve ever known, and slowly empty the nearest vending machine throughout the night. When morning comes, along with the next train out of here, Yuuri is almost… sorry.

 

 

* * *

 

 

> Posted by u/PM_me_your_feelz 8 hours ago
> 
> **Reddit, what’s the weirdest coincidence you’ve experienced recently?**
> 
>    279 comments    Share Save ...

 

 

Alone in his hotel room, Yuuri scrolls blindly through his Reddit feed. He’s still wide awake with six hours to go before he has to be on a train for the third leg of his trip. He’s also a little tipsy on _akevitt_ , and suffering a terrible case of idle hands, when a recent AskReddit thread catches his eye.

 

 _What the hell_ , he thinks. It’s not like any post he makes won’t be buried by tomorrow, anyway.

 

 

> **quadbutz**
> 
> Last week I was waiting at a bus stop, and this guy pulled up in his car and offered me a lift to where I was going. A week later, I see the exact same guy again at a train station… up in the mountains, in the middle of the night, in another country 3000 km away.

 

 

Yuuri forgets about the thread right after he submits the comment. He opens up a few other pages, and glances at some more unanswered emails out of guilt.

 

He’s surprised to get a reply to his post so soon.

 

 

> **PABarthezzz**
> 
> Bus stop? Train station? Sounds like you might’ve run into the god of liminal spaces..

 

 

Yuuri, or maybe the _akevitt_ , replies very intelligently:

 

 

> **quadbutz**
> 
> ??? Explain?
> 
>  
> 
> **PABarthezzz**
> 
> Liminal spaces are basically thresholds, like bus stops, train stations, airports, stairwells, etc. They say that sometimes, when your own life is at a crossroads of some sort, you might run into the god of liminal spaces in one of these places. Ask for his blessing!

 

 

Yuuri takes a look at their posting history: lots of contributions to r/conspiracy, r/occult, and r/OccultConspiracy, which is a separate thing altogether. Not a good start. But the discussion piqued his curiosity, so down the rabbit hole he goes.

 

His own Googling tells him much of the same. ‘Liminal’ spaces are those that exist entirely for places that come before and after them: two adjacent floors in a building; cities connected by a stretch of empty road; a city and a plane, ready to take you anywhere-but-here. These are the places you don’t really think about or consider as ‘spaces’ in and of themselves, because you’re only ever in them when you’re coming from somewhere, and going somewhere else.

 

Finding a reference to some ‘god’ of these spaces is a hundred times harder. All he gets is a single comment on a blog post, anonymous of course, buried under about a dozen others: “ _The god of liminal spaces occasionally has a penchant for mischief, but is ultimately kind.”_

 

He doesn’t know if that’s supposed to be encouraging.

 

 

> **quadbutz**
> 
> So why do I keep running into him then?
> 
>  
> 
> **PABarthezzz**
> 
> Well… would you say that your life is at a crossroads right now?
> 
>  

 

Yuuri checks the clock on his bedside table, counts through the time zones. Back home, the _onsen_ will be opening in less than two hours, and preparations for the day are probably well underway. He’d be helping out if he weren’t here; after this trip is over, all of his mornings are going to look pretty much the same.

 

He lies.

 

 

> **quadbutz**
> 
> Not particularly.
> 
>  
> 
> **PABarthezzz**
> 
> Then maybe he just likes you, I dunno.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Once upon a time, Yuuri was part of a trio. He, Yuuko, and Takeshi were fast friends right out of the gate. It helped that their families’ houses were on the same block, and that they almost always got placed in the same class. Even now, some of his fondest memories include the three of them lighting up stick fireworks and running on the beach, some endless years ago.

 

But things changed, as they’re wont to do. Yuuri was actually the one who broke away first, by moving to Detroit after high school. They promised to stay in touch then, too, and they all made an effort to do that.

 

And then, well…

 

It was probably a natural consequence, like gravity: the farther apart you are, the weaker it becomes. Of course, the reverse is just as true, and there were wedding bells and baby bumps, and everything in between. When the triplets were about a year old, he learns, Takeshi got a job offer overseas that was ‘too good to pass up’. That was six years ago.

 

The Nishigori family is one of the main reasons Yuuri’s chosen this third leg of his trip. Yuuko found a job at a huge open-air museum, and he’s supposed to meet her and Takeshi in one of its bigger restaurants today.

 

Unfortunately, she forgot to tell him that it’s closed for renovations. Yuuri placates her through her litany of apology texts, and heads around to the back to find a place to wait.

 

The open-air museum was built on a hill, so Yuuri heads over to a vantage point where he gets a good view of the city, as well as the amusement park next to the museum. The drop tower, especially, is impossible to miss - not just for its height, but for the screams whenever the drop starts.

 

“Terrifying, isn’t it?”

 

Yuuri freezes. “Okay, now this is _really_ weird.”

 

“What is?” Victor smiles. “How we happen to keep running into each other?”

 

“I’m starting to think it isn’t something that just ‘happens’ to keep… happening.” He winces. That was awful. “Three times in three different countries is a hell of a coincidence.”

 

“It’s good to see you too, Yuuri.”

 

Like this, with his back against the setting sun, the fading light casts him in a soft, dramatic glow.

 

Yuuri swallows. “Why do you show up everywhere I go?”

 

“What makes you so sure I wouldn’t be asking you the same question?”

 

Yuuri grits his teeth. “You haven’t. Not yet, anyway.”

 

“Does it really bother you so much?”

 

“It’s more than a little weird!!”

 

“So you’ve told me.” Victor heaves a sigh. “But is my presence truly so offensive to you?”

 

Yuuri sputters. “What?”

 

“Last time…” Victor flashes him the softest of smiles. “It was fun, wasn’t it? Helped you to forget?”

 

_Forget?_

 

“What… do you mean by that?”

 

Victor steps closer, the motion so smooth and easy that it looks like he’s gliding through air. Yuuri is so distracted by him that he forgets to step back - even when Victor reaches out, and runs the pad of his thumb under Yuuri’s bottom lip.

 

“Say the word, and I’ll leave you in peace,” Victor murmurs. “Until then, as long as you need me… I’ll always be close by.”

 

Victor’s touch sends a rush that scuttles down his spine. Yuuri sucks in his breath.

 

“Yuuri- _kun_!”

 

His name - that’s his name being shouted out. It’s Yuuko’s voice. He turns around.

 

He can hear the sad smile in Victor’s voice. “Too late.”

 

When he glances back, Victor is gone.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Dinner with Yuuko and her family almost feels like old times, full of laughter and food and good-natured ribbing. The girls are old enough now to be sassy in their own, individual ways, and they drive their mother crazy. It’s hilarious to watch.

 

When Yuuri asks, though, Yuuko confirms something that he already suspects: he was completely alone when she came upon him. How strange.

 

He winds up dreaming of Victor that night. It starts where they left off, with Victor’s thumb on his lip, but it doesn’t take long for Victor to replace it with something else. In his dreams, Victor tastes like salt one second, nothing the next, and like fine, fine wine on the third. His lips leave fire in their wake as he rakes them down Yuuri’s throat, his chest, his thighs. His mouth wrapped around Yuuri engulfs him in the same sweet, dizzying heat. And when he finally grasps Yuuri’s hips, and pushes inside…

 

Yuuri bolts awake just before 3 a.m., his legs tangled in sticky sheets.

 

Ah, _hell._

 

 

* * *

 

 

He tries hard not to think too much about Victor after that.

 

No, _really_ , he does.

 

Apart from the strangeness of their meetings, and the awkwardness of that dream - which Yuuri swears only happened because he’s been completely touch-starved recently - he doesn’t know what to say after their last encounter. He isn’t even sure Victor would want to see him again at all.

 

A small part of Yuuri must still want to see _him_ , though. That’s the only explanation Yuuri has for how a restless, aimless walk after dinner finds him standing in the middle of a long dock that connects a mall, some office buildings, and a series of hotels - including his own - to the river.

 

“You’re starting to figure it out.”

 

After all of the earlier precedents of this, Yuuri isn’t even surprised anymore. “Hi, Victor.”

 

He’s dressed in a gray suit tonight, and without a coat despite the chill in the air just like last time. To anyone else, he might look like some worker who’s just come out of one of the office buildings. An unbelievably handsome office worker, but still.

 

“You’re on the move quite a lot. Tell me, are you going to be wandering forever? Backpacking through the continent like so many before you, until you find what it is you’re seeking?”

 

Yuuri shakes his head. “This is the second-to-last leg of my trip. And I’m _not_ \- looking for anything. Not really.”

 

“If that were true, then we never would have met.”

 

Yuuri avoids his gaze. The suspicion has been building and building over the past few weeks, but now the whole theory of Victor being a ‘god’ of some sort, crazy though it sounds, is… starting to make a lot of sense.

 

What, then? That post he read mentioned something about the god’s blessing; is he supposed to make a wish of some sort? What good would that do?

 

“You’re not running away from anything, or _to_ anything in particular,” Victor observes. “You’ll be going home soon, yes?”

 

“In a week,” Yuuri mumbles. He’s taking the train out to his final destination tomorrow, spending six days there, and then flying back to Japan.

 

“And you are… satisfied… with what you’ve learned from this adventure?”

 

“What makes you think I wanted to learn anything?”

 

“‘Confirm’, then. ‘Ascertain’. It’s all semantics in the end.”

 

Yuuri almost wants to laugh at that. So Victor _does_ know what he took this trip for, after all. It makes sense, if he really is a god and all. It also begs the question of how much he knows, and if he’s caught onto just what kind of thoughts Yuuri’s been having about him.

 

He has a feeling that Victor doesn’t actually care all that much about such trivial things.

 

“Yuuri?”

 

“I wanted to make sure that… I could tolerate it, you know? Being alone, no matter where I go, even when I’m far away from home.”

 

“Why is that?” comes Victor’s gentle reply.

 

Yuuri’s eyes burn. “I mean, that’s where my life seems to be going, isn’t it?” He forces out a laugh. “Might as well get used to it.”

 

It isn’t even just about Phichit, or about Yuuko and Takeshi and the girls - it’s been _everyone_. All of the people in Yuuri’s life, from those he considered somewhat ‘close’, to others that just sort of hovered in orbit near him, moved onto bigger, better, brighter things, their trajectory always pointing further and further away. They moved to their dream cities and got their dream jobs, they married and started families, and they carved out their happiness from whatever corner of the world they called home. Granted, Yuuri was the one who made the choice to come back and to pull away, but at this point, it almost just feels like a feedback loop. If he already knows what the final result is, then he might as well accept it.

 

That’s what coping is… right?

 

“How has it been?” Victor asks. “Being perpetually alone for the past… three weeks, was it?”

 

Yuuri finds himself nodding weakly. “Better than I thought.”

 

“But?”

 

“I wish it wasn’t.” Yuuri lets out a sad, shaky little laugh. “And I’m not… sure that I want it to be.”

 

The weight of that realization, and the silence that it brings, sits on his shoulders when he hears the first _pop!_ from overhead. Glancing up, Yuuri sees a burst of fire and light blooming in the darkness - followed by another. And another.

 

“Connecting with people doesn’t always have to be some exhausting, formidable task, you know,” Victor says softly. “Sometimes, you just have to open up, and let people meet you where you are.”

 

The door to the lobby of the nearest hotel bursts open. Yuuri glances back down instinctively, and sees a crowd of people rushing out to the dock, yelling, eager to watch the fireworks.

 

Eyes smarting, Yuuri lowers his head and leaves. He doesn’t have to look back to know that Victor is gone.

 

 

* * *

 

 

On the last day of the last leg of his trip, Yuuri finally finds something in himself that approximates some kind of nerve. After all, what has he got to lose?

 

This is the thought he keeps replaying in his head as he creates a liminal space of his own: rearranging the chairs and other small furniture, he builds a ‘passageway’ that leads from the bathroom door to the main part of his hotel room, where the bed is. He calls down to the front desk at every shift change, asking for extra pillows and blankets to build the walls. A couple of 30-ft rope lights and a fully-charged power bank for his phone complete his setup.

 

He doesn’t know what he’s expecting.

 

He doesn’t even know if this will work.

 

A few hours go by, with nothing but silence. He runs out of things to do on his phone.

 

He nods off - maybe. Because when he next opens his eyes, Victor is there, sitting cross-legged across from him, wearing one of the hotel’s bathrobes.

 

“Victor.” Yuuri rubs the sleep out of his eyes. “You’re… here.”

 

“Of course I am,” He chuckles. “Why wouldn’t I come, when I’ve been so cordially invited?”

 

Of course. This was what he wanted, isn’t it? But the sight of Victor in front of him, so close… close enough to _touch_ … takes the words clean out of his mouth.

 

It takes a while for him to find them again. “What you said earlier,” he starts. “About letting people meet me where I am…”

 

Victor looks up and around himself, gesturing to everything Yuuri set up for him. “It seems you understood me quite well at the time.”

 

“Maybe.” Yuuri clasps his hands together, squeezing until his knuckles turn white. “It’s not easy.”

 

“I never did say it was. And admitting as much is not a sign of weakness, Yuuri.”

 

Is he just saying that to be patronizing, or does he really mean it? Yuuri isn’t sure.

 

“Well, I’m glad you’ve accepted the gift of wisdom that I gave you,” Victor cuts into his thoughts. “Your trip ends tomorrow, doesn’t it? That means we won’t have the opportunity to see each other anymore.”

 

“No,” Yuuri whispers.

 

“Well, I wish you safe travels. And I hope that you’ll look back fondly on the time we spent together, brief though it was.”

 

Just like that, he pulls aside one of the blankets serving as a makeshift ‘door’, throws Yuuri one last, dazzling smile, and pushes himself to his feet. The glimpse of leg that Yuuri sees when the hem of the robe rides up distracts him, and at the same time emboldens him. _Fuck._ Is he really this touch-starved? It’s pathetic.

 

Or maybe… maybe it’s something deeper than that. Maybe it’s something more.

 

_Stay._

 

“Yuuri? If you want something else from me, you need to ask.”

 

It’s really far simpler than whatever he’s convinced himself that he wants. All of their earlier encounters ended the exact same way: Victor disappearing, either because Yuuri had to leave the space, or too many people entered the space. Tonight, he’s leaving because Yuuri already understood his advice. There’s nothing left for him here.

 

Yuuri pulls himself out of the makeshift passageway and finds Victor standing at the main door, with his back turned. He hesitates.

 

He wants Victor to stay.

 

“Was I mistaken?” Victor lets out a little laugh, and closes his hand around the doorknob. “Then, I guess this is goodb-”

 

“Stay?”

 

 _Sometimes, when you open up, people meet you where you are._ That was Victor’s ‘gift of wisdom’.

 

No better time to test it than the present.

 

“Stay… here, with me.” Yuuri swallows hard. “Please?”

 

Victor calmly turns around, and shuts the door again.

 

“…Is that really all you want?”

 

Yuuri doesn’t know who kisses the other first, or how long they spend kissing after he pushes Victor up against the door. He runs his hands through silver strands that slip like silk between his fingers. Unlike in his dreams, Victor tastes mostly like a deep, rich musk that Yuuri can’t quite describe, although he finds it so, so sweetly intoxicating. Yuuri tugs on the sash of the robe, slides it down Victor’s shoulders, and lets it drop to the floor.

 

“Wow,” Yuuri breathes, taking in every inch of him. “It’s like you’re not even real.”

 

“Hurtful, Yuuri.” But Victor has a smile on his face when he brings Yuuri’s hand to his lips, and presses a kiss against his knuckles.

 

Victor is just as perfect as Yuuri's subconscious fantasies promised, if not even more so. He's warm hands and warmer eyes, whispers and breaths that rob Yuuri of all words. He's gentle, and he takes his time as he pulls off Yuuri's clothes, chasing them with soft, feather-like kisses on the skin he reveals.

 

He lets out a short, breathless laugh when Yuuri grows restless, flips them over, and worships his way across Victor's body with his lips.

 

Victor pulls him closer to take him in, and Yuuri nearly loses himself in the tight, dizzying heat. And when Victor wraps his legs around Yuuri's waist, gasping his name as he arches up beautifully from the mattress, Yuuri almost, _almost_ forgets that Victor is a god at all.

 

“Will I see you again?” Yuuri mumbles, when all is said and done. “After tonight?”

 

Victor chuckles and pulls him close, letting Yuuri rest his head in the crook of his neck. Yuuri curls up against him,

 

Just as he starts to drift off, he thinks he hears Victor whisper, “As you wish.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Victor isn’t there in the morning. Yuuri didn’t expect him to be.

 

So he takes a cab ride to the train station, where he doesn’t see Victor anywhere. He takes the express train to the airport, and he doesn’t see Victor from the time he steps inside, to the time they start boarding his flight.It’s fine; Yuuri feels lighter than he has in months, and he doesn’t regret a thing.  

 

He’s got the window seat at the very last row, because he forgot all about the online check-in process yesterday. He tries to find some consolation in the fact that he gets to board somewhat earlier, at least. It’s going to be a long flight out, a short layover in Seoul, and then another flight home.

 

When he finally gets to the back of the plane, he sees that someone is already sitting in the aisle seat: a tall, fair-skinned man with silvery-blond hair…

 

Yuuri does a double-take. What the hell?

 

An airport makes sense, but the plane itself… that isn’t a liminal space, is it? No, it can’t be.   


The man looks exactly like Victor. But when he leans in a little closer, Yuuri realizes he’s able to make out a few flaws here and there - bags under the eyes, slightly chapped lips, an old scar faded but visible on the back of his hand…   


'His' Victor _(hah)_ was always flawless. It was almost unnerving, he remembers.

 

“Excuse me, please…” Yuuri tries to stop his voice from shaking. “I think I’ve got the… window…”

 

“Oh, of course, let me just…”

 

The man trails off mid-sentence, and freezes. He eventually remembers to stand up, but he stares as Yuuri makes his way to his seat.

 

He’s still staring at him openly - with those wide, brilliant blue eyes - when Yuuri buckles his seat belt.

 

"Ah… sorry, this is going to come from out of nowhere, but…” He even _sounds_ like Victor too. “By any chance, were you in Prague recently? Or Moscow?"

 

…Oh.

 

_Oh._

 

Slowly, but surely, the pieces start to click together. Yuuri feels a smile forming on his face despite himself, as the understanding dawns. “No.” He shakes his head. “And you - ever been to Scandinavia? Iceland?”

 

“Never stepped foot in any of those places in my life.” The man laughs, an easy recognition settling into his face.

 

He knows - he understands it now too.

 

“He showed himself to you too, didn’t he?” Yuuri murmurs. “As… me?”

 

The man nods vigorously. “Helped you get through a crossroads in your life too, yeah?”

 

_The god of liminal spaces occasionally has a penchant for mischief, but is ultimately kind._

 

“Well, let’s… start over, I suppose.” Yuuri holds out his hand. “I’m Yuuri - though you probably already knew that. And you are?”

 

The man takes his hand with a smile, and meets Yuuri where he is.

 

 


End file.
